Your Right to Know

Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman has a new message for the old problem of bad landlords: “We’re
going after them.”

He wants to attack neglected houses and slumlords with additional manpower, new criminal
penalties and a new state law aimed at unmasking the people behind secretive real-estate
companies.

“We’re committed more than ever to rid our neighborhoods of the scourge of blight,” Coleman said
yesterday. “We’re serious. We’re very serious.”

He made the announcement during the unveiling of his $796.7 million 2014 budget proposal.

The mayor’s plan to crack down on landlords comes on the heels of a seven-month
Dispatch investigation that showed that city policies, judicial whims and lax state laws
have allowed chronic housing-code offenders to avoid detection and punishment.

The city relies on complaints to drive its code-enforcement priorities, and as a result,
inspectors spend the majority of their time writing citations for tall grass, weeds, junk in yards
and other nuisances neighbors see from their windows. Inspectors don’t ferret out problems on their
own, and they haven’t targeted landlords with long histories of flouting the housing-maintenance
code.

The Dispatch identified 100 chronic-code offenders who each owned multiple properties in
the city and have faced little punishment for regularly violating the law.

The city never has systemically looked at these repeat offenders.

As a result of the newspaper’s “Legacy of Neglect” series, available online at
Dispatch.com/neglect, Coleman announced yesterday his plan to revamp code enforcement.

He is asking the city council to increase the code-enforcement division’s budget by 12 percent
to $7.6 million to add eight inspectors and a supervisor.

Those new inspectors would be divided into two “hit squads” to target neighborhoods choked with
blight and chronic-code offenders.

“We’re going to a more proactive and targeted approach,” Coleman said.

Those new inspectors would increase the code-enforcement staff to 62 to cover 228 square miles
and 370,965 houses. Cleveland has the second-largest staff: 49 officers to cover 87 square
miles.

Calls to the city’s 311 complaint line “will remain the base of the system,” Development
Director Steven J. Schoeny said. “We have to be responsive to our citizens.”

But the new inspectors will allow the department to “shift its strategy to really target those
who are habitually bad landlords,” Coleman said. The new supervisor will make sure the strategy is
carried out.

The code-enforcement division also will beef up its antiquated and sometimes inaccurate computer
system to help its new, proactive mission, he said.

And Coleman is asking the city council to increase the criminal penalties for code
violations.

Currently, property owners can be charged with a third-degree misdemeanor for failing to remedy
a code violation. It carries a maximum $500 fine and/or 60 days in jail.

The mayor wants Columbus to follow the lead of Cleveland and Cincinnati and make code violations
a first-degree misdemeanor, which carries a maximum fine of $1,000 and/or six months in jail.

The chronic violators tracked by
The Dispatch paid an average fine of $100 for neglecting problems at their properties. In
Cleveland, the average fine is $2,000.

Coleman really wants to see some of the worst end up behind bars.

“If they fear they are going to spend time with the county, in a forced manner, with new
accommodations, without a Jacuzzi and with barely running water, I think we will find these
landlords — these irresponsible landlords — will be more focused on being more responsible,”
Coleman said.

And, he said, he plans to ask state lawmakers to change a 19-year-old state law that allows
limited-liability companies to cloak the identities of individuals running the business.

Of the top-20 chronic code violators in Columbus in the past five years, 13 are
limited-liability companies that have frustrated housing inspectors and prosecutors because the law
essentially allows them to remain hidden.

In some cases, the city can’t find a person to hold responsible.

LLCs “hide behind the veil of legality,” Coleman said. “We try to get them, but they live in
France. They live in Florida. They live in Canada. They live in China, and they live down the
street in the city of Columbus. They hide behind the corporate veil, and it’s hard to get to
them."

Community activists applauded Coleman’s plan and were especially pleased that he is asking for
more inspectors.

Geoff Phillips of the Highland West Neighbors Association on the Hilltop said it’s about time
the city beefed up its code-enforcement staff, especially after cutting it in previous years.

“There’s a lot of catch-up to be done,” Phillips said. “People are still buying and selling
these (houses) for $5,000.”

Tom Linzell, a member of the Hungarian Village Society, said he welcomes the surge in
code-enforcement officers.

“Absolutely,” said Linzell, whose South Side neighborhood has been besieged with bad landlords
and their bad tenants.

Coleman said that
The Dispatch investigation armed him with what he needed to make his case. “I didn’t have
to pay a consultant to tell us how to do things better.”